Strategists spend hours poring over every word a president utters, every policy position he takes and every state he visits, a level of attention to detail that makes happenstance virtually nonexistent.

And so, when the White House announced today that President Obama would deliver his much-anticipated jobs speech on Sept. 7 at 8 pm — the exact same day and time that the 2012 Republican candidates are scheduled to debate in California — the idea that the timing was purely coincidental was, well, far-fetched.

It’s clear that this White House saw an opportunity to drive a major — and direct — contrast between President Obama and his potential Republican rivals and took it.

As to whether that’s a good idea, strategists — even within the Democratic party — are divided.

First, let’s get the official line from the White House on the scheduling of the speech.

“It is coincidental,” said spokesman Jay Carney at today’s press briefing. “There are a lot of factors that go into scheduling a joint session of Congress for a speech. You can never find a perfect time. ... There are many channels to watch the president and to watch the debate.”

True enough — but not the whole truth. (The air of “truthiness” one might say.)

Yes, it is hard to schedule a presidential address to Congress. And, yes, there are lots and lots of cable channels.

But, the political reality is that by scheduling the jobs speech at the same time as the debate the White House is trying to force a choice and a contrast.

Speaker of the House John Boehner sent a letter back to President Obama regarding the president's request for a joint session of Congress on September 7. However, Mr. Boehner told the president that the date would not be available and proposed September 8 instead. Below is an excerpt of the letter:

and be far better, viable, and sustainable in the long term without a looming currency and debt crisis.

Instead - your messiah made things drastically worse on all fronts by pulling a madoff scam on the public.

Perhaps

But much worse NOW and by letting things get much worse its much less likely that things would be better, more viable etc.... in the future. Wed just be digging out of an even deeper hole with sustantial more misery along the way.

But much worse NOW and by letting things get much worse its much less likely that things would be better, more viable etc.... in the future. Wed just be digging out of an even deeper hole with sustantial more misery along the way.

No - we are going to have misery for FAR LONGER as a result of not taking the tough medicine in 2008 and breaking up the banks and sending these wall street and govt madoffs to the cleaners.

What we did was not only delay the inevitable, but we blew up a currency and debt bubble in the meantime on top of the collapsing credit bubble via real estate.

But much worse NOW and by letting things get much worse its much less likely that things would be better, more viable etc.... in the future. Wed just be digging out of an even deeper hole with sustantial more misery along the way.

The debt is still there. The zombie institutions are still there sucking up more resources and producing nothing. There is so much debt across all spectrum that the Fed cannot ever raise interest rates.

We've simply continued to inject more and more heroine and cocaine into the patient. He's "alive" but he isn't getting any healthier. He's a zombie now.

or

Uncle Sam has some very bad wounds and a shit load of parasites sucking him dry. So instead of pulling out the bullets and shrapnel and killing the parasites our govt. just continues to pump more blood into Uncle Sam. Sure he's barely alive, but he's "alive", right? The parasites are still there, the wounds aren't allowed to heal, but he's alive. But the bad news is that we've run out of blood now so we're just going to start cutting it with water and morphine and just up the dosage.

I'm just in an analogy type of mood today.

P.S. - I'm not a "We should have done nothing" proponent or anything. There could have been things done to reassure confidence, let failed and corrupt institutions pay the price etc....but they weren't done. Instead now we have all the players and pieces that created this disaster still alive, still sucking up resources, still doing the things they were doing and just waiting for the next bailout. Not good.

We did the exact opposite of what should have been done. We bailed out the failed banks and propped up unsustainable and unrealistic debt situations based on fraudulent assessments and valuations, and at the same time - let the productive part of our economy fall by the wayside and get hurt drastically worse as a result.

One could not have possibly handled this situation in a worse fashion than Bush/Paulson/Geithner/obama/Bernake did.

Main Street credit is gone.

Elderly people are getting zero interest on savings and on CD's

Inflation is raging in energy, food, healthcare

TBTF is bigger than ever and has ZERO incentive to loan to small busainess or start ups.

Obama Admn is beyond incompetent and ignorant to the level of criminal.

Wall Street is making money with more scams and schemes and now about to lay off a lot of people.

Housing correction still years off as a result of the pump and dump scams of obama via TALF, HAMP, and the other nonsense.

We passed a Dodd Frank bill which has added a tremendous amount of uncertainty as community banks are getting hammered, TBTF is enshrined, new regs are pouring out daily, etc.

How anyone could remotely or even possibly defend Obama/Geithner/Bernake is beyond my comprehension

That lone word on the subject line of the e-mail President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign sent to supporters late Wednesday night said it all.

How the president was feeling after two months of near-constant fighting with Congress. How the White House felt after a day when it capitulated in a high-stakes contest of political gamesmanship with House Speaker John Boehner.

“I know that you’re frustrated by that. I am, too,” Obama wrote in the e-mail, which arrived in hundreds of thousands of inboxes between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m.

The Obama campaign’s vaunted e-mail list was credited in 2008 with helping him turn out record numbers of grass-roots supporters to the polls in his historic march to the White House. Three years later, Obama was trying to rally the troops again, only this time to help him gain back ground in his bitter dispute with Republicans over how to fix the ailing economy.

The campaign sent the e-mail shortly after the president had backed off his bid to speak to a special joint session of Congress next Wednesday to lay out his plan for creating jobs and boosting the economy. The time slot conflicted with a scheduled debate among Republican presidential candidates the same night in California.

White House: People 'sick and tired' of WashingtonBy JIM KUHNHENN The Associated Press

Posted: 7:26 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 1, 2011

President Barack Obama's chief spokesman says the dust-up with House Republicans over the timing of Obama's economic speech to Congress dramatizes why "people are fed up" with Washington.

Press secretary Jay Carney tells MSNBC "our intention was merely for the president to address a joint session "as soon as possible," to outline his plan for creating jobs.

Carney says "our interest is in not having a political back and forth here at all." He also says that the White House yielded when Speaker John Boehner (BAY'-nur) insisted the speech be next Thursday, instead of Wednesday, because of a GOP debate.

Carney says "Americans are sick and tired of the partisan bickering" in the capital. He argues that Obama wants to focus on "things we can do" to spur the economy.

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September 01, 2011 07:26 AM EDT

Copyright 2011, The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

WASHINGTON -- The White House is making it easier for people to press the federal government to act. more: abc13.com politics section

It is bringing that age-old constitutional right to petition one's government into the digital age with a new webpage, "We the People," where members of the public will be able to create and sign petitions seeking the government's action on a range of issues.

An official response is guaranteed for any petition that draws enough signatures -- 5,000 names within 30 days -- after it is reviewed by staff and the appropriate policy experts within the administration, according to White House officials who previewed the details for The Associated Press.

The White House planned to launch the page Thursday on its official website,

The administration officials requested anonymity to discuss details before the formal announcement.

"When I ran for this office, I pledged to make government more open and accountable to its citizens," President Barack Obama says in the taped announcement. He says the new feature will give Americans "a direct line" to the White House on issues that most concern them.

The online petition program comes as Obama has been urging the public to press their representatives in Congress to act on his ideas for creating jobs and balancing the federal budget.

To emphasize word-of-mouth organizing, a petition's Web address initially will only be known by the person who created it. The address is not supposed to show up anywhere else on the White House website until 150 signatures have been collected, the officials said.

The White House already accepts petitions through its correspondence office and that is not expected to change with the new webpage, according to the officials.

Obama economic advisor Gene Sperling blamed the economy the president inherited for today's unemployment report which maintains the jobless rate at 9.1 %. Sperling also touted 11 million jobs that have supposedly been "saved" due to the president's spending policies.